Cash Payment Systems in all standard electronic vending machines usually consist of two main cash handling components, a Coin Changer and a Dollar Bill Validator and/or a Dollar Bill Recycler.

Coin Changers come in many makes and models, but are usually MDB and therefore interchangeable in all vending machine in production today and many previous machine models which have been in production from the late 1990’s. Coin changers accepts dollar coins, quarters, dimes, nickels and in some cases even pennies. They also return change in all four denominations depending on the style of coin changers and how many change tubes a specific coin changer has, which may also include penny change return tubes. There are usually three coin tubes at a minimum to dispense quarters, dimes and nickels. There are coin changers that may have up to six coin tubes and usually programmed to whatever the operator wishes them to dispense in the form of change given back to the customer. The coin changer will accept the incoming coins and route them to their respective tubes, once these tubes are filled they will block the fill sensor which then sends a message to the coin changer to route the excess coins to the cash box. The coin tubes will usually remain full as they are always the first priority to be filled if they begin to get depleted. Depending on the price settings in the machines, it may sometimes cause the machine to give out certain coins for change especially when there is a dollar bill validator installed in the machine. Therefore, this may eventually cause a certain coin tube to run out of change causing the coin changer to send a “use correct change” message to the display on the front of the machine. This action in turn will disable the dollar bill validator from accepting any notes. One would also have to insert the exact amount of coins for the machine to operate. Once enough of the coins that ran empty are inserted and directed to that specific tube, and the low coin sensor senses that coins are back in the tube it will automatically turn off the “use exact change” light and the machine will begin to function normally.

Dollar Bill Validators are the units which accepts notes. These bill validators usually have bill stackers on them that has bill capacities of 200 to 1000 bills. Dollar bill validators also come in many makes and models and usually accepts $1.00, $5.00, $10.00 & $20.00 bills. They are also MDB compatible. You may also request as an option and for an additional cost a bill validator which will accept $50.00 and $100.00 notes in addition to the other four notes. This option however is usually used in Dollar Bill to Bill and Coin Changers or Bill to Bill Breakers. Or in vending machine where the price points are very high. However, it is usually best to then install a Dollar Bill Recycler in such vending machines or Kiosks.

Dollar Bill Recyclers are a very popular option found in many machine today. When ordering a vending machine, you may order a dollar bill recycler in lieu of a standard dollar bill acceptor. A dollar bill recycler is different in that it not only accepts all notes and does everything the standard dollar bill validator does, but it also stores about 30 bills in either $1.00 notes or $5.00 notes in the bill recycler and then has the capability of returning it as change to a customer in notes as well as coins from the coin changer. Therefore, customers may use larger notes to make purchases from the vending machine of smaller price points without depleting the coin tubes in the coin changer. This is an expensive optional upgrade, but could be really worth it to an operator as this will increase product sales and avoiding empty change tube situations in the coin changers. You may order an optional dollar bill recycler with the purchase of any vending machine or for any machine you may already own. This is providing your machine already has a dollar bill acceptor and coin changer that is MDB compatible, and because the dollar bill recyclers are larger in size and requires more physical space than a standard dollar bill validator. It has also become very popular in install dollar bill recyclers in Dollar Bill Changers.

All of the above items are manufactured by a number of companies such as Coin Acceptors, Pyramid, Mars MEI by Crane and others.